A modeling of atmospheric DBD parameters effect on plasma elctrical characteristics ABIDAT Roukia Microsystems and Instrumentation Laboratory (LMI),Electronic Departement,Engineering Faculty, University of Constantine1, Algeria rokiamail2000@yahoo.fr REBIAI Saida Microsystems and Instrumentation Laboratory (LMI),Electronic Departement,Engineering Faculty, University of Constantine1, Algeria s_rebiai@yahoo.fr Abstract—Dielectric Barrier Discharges (DBD) plasma at atmospheric pressure (APP) are characterized by the presence of at least one dielectric layer between metal electrodes in discharge space. A numerical simulation using one dimentional fluid model is performed precisely at various discharge conditions in helium plasma to calculate electrical characteristics such gas voltage and discharge current. The presente model solves the continuity equations for charged species and the electron energy balance equation, coupled with Poisson’s equation, by the finite element method; using COMSOL Multiphysics software. a parallel plate dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) scheme is considered and a peak-to- peak voltage of 1kV, a low frequency power source of 200 Hz, a disharge gap of 3 mm and a dielectric constant of 10 are applied as input parameters. Effect of applied voltage, driven frequency and secondary emission of electrons is studied. The obtained results are given in terms of temporal variations of descharge current. Keywords-Atmospheric pressure; plasma DBD; numerical simulation; COMSOL Multipysics; Fluid model; Electrical characteristics; I. INTRODUCTION In recent years,dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure has attracted much attention because of its advantages for industrial applications such as ozone formation [1,2], thin-film deposition, pollution control, modification of Polymers, plasma-chemical vapor deposition excitation of CO 2 lasers, excimer lamps, plasma- display panels [3-6] , sterilization of biological samples [7- 10]. In the past decades, remarkable studies on atmospheric pressure discharges (APD) have been done experimentally and numerically in different gases, particularly in pure helium or helium with small addition of N 2 , O 2 , Ar [11-13] or other noble gases [14-16]. A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma is a discharge phenomenon where an alternating current (Ac) voltage is applied on at least two electrodes and the electrodes are insulated by at least one dielectric material with a gap distance of some millimeters and a low frequency of few kilohertz. In this paper, a 1-D fluid model of helium atmospheric pressure DBD plasma, mainly based on the continuity equations coupled with Poisson’s equation and solved by finite element using COMSOL software, is presented. We have investigated the electrical characteristics of the discharge of the parallel-plate plasma DBD reactor using discharge parameters applied in our laboratory in sterilization by atmospheric plasma DBD to optimize work conditions. The paper is organized as follows, sections 2 gives a description of the model. In section 3, numerical results are presented and discussed and in section 4, effect of external parameters is considered. II. NUMERICAL SIMULATION MODEL A. Description of Modeling Geometrys The atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma reactor considered in this simulation is similar to the homemade reactor used for Escherichia coli inactivation, depicted in Fig. 1, where the dielectric glass plate is applied as sample-supporting surface [17]. The numerical model treats the case of dielectric-barrier discharges in presence of one insulating layer between metal electrodes. Discharge gap width and thickness of dielectric barrier are 3 mm and 1.3 mm, respectively. The dielectric constant of insulating barrier is assumed to be 10 in this modeling. Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the 1-D DBD simulation model for a parallel-plate DBD reactor with one dielectric barrier Proceedings of The first International Conference on Nanoelectronics, Communications and Renewable Energy 2013 363 ICNCRE ’13 ISBN : 978-81-925233-8-5 www.edlib.asdf.res.in Downloaded from www.edlib.asdf.res.in